i54 MAIDEN CASTLE
the bowl of elderberry wine, and replenishing her glass, called
out in an authoritative voice: "Here, Wizz Ravelston, you
haven't drunk with me yet!"
Thuella's lovely features contracted and her eyes narrowed
under their lids till they became all pupil; but her sister's ap-
peal was such a public one that she could offer no resistance
when Wizzie got up with mechanical docility and went over
to Jenny; and Dud, as he watched the two standing and whis-
pering together, decided emphatically, as he had already done
tentatively on his way here, that the worst danger to his peace
was not threatening him from the "Horse-Head's" quarter,
nor even from Old Funky's, but from this ghost-winded
Glymes.
He began asking Mrs. Quirm questions again, this time
about what her husband had said with regard to this suddenly
rising and suddenly falling wind.
Both Mrs. Dearth and Wizzie had now drawn up their
chairs close to the discomfited Claudius; but the reformer,
after a considerable pause, during which the lids drooped
wearily over his eyes like those of a sulky falcon which has
been put back into his cage, turned to Uryen with a less orator-
ical appeal.
"Jenny says I mustn't bother you now, Mr. Quirm. But I
do beg you to think of it, As a lover of history I'm sure you'll
agree that it is significant, in view of our present attempt to
overcome Nature by Science, that we should find a temple to
Minerva at Maiden Castle."
"There!" thought No-man, who was watching Uryen. "I
believe I saw the fellow's eyes come to life!" What rushed
into Dud's head as he noted this change was the curious phrase
rex semimortuus which he had once come across in some work
on the religion of the ancient Celts. "That's what he is!" he
said to himself. "He's a rex semimortuus. He's a corpse-god!"
But the man had begun to reply to Claudius. His unwieldy
bulk seemed, after his walk, to be less lethargic, though it was
just as shabbily and untidily garbed as when Dud had first met
him. He wore some sort of faded sweater over his waistcoat,
and his corduroy trousers were so dirty as to strike an unseemly
note beside Thuella's silken gown. But his general appearance
—probably from his exposure to that ambiguous wind on the
summit of the great Camp—was undoubtedly a shade more